John Copley's production, now 41 years old and due to retire after the 2014/15 Season, was the first production to be shown on a Big Screen - Plácido Domingo's performance was live streamed to outdoor screens in 1987.

The relays, presented in cinemas by Kirsty Wark and on BP Big Screens by Dominic Peckham, featured a series of backstage films, including rehearsal footage and interviews with members of the cast and creative team.

If you missed the screening on the night, or just want to find out more about the production, here's another chance to see the films:

‘It was the first proper opera I’d seen. I was 11 or 12 and I cried all the way home on the bus. The next day I went and got a score from the library and I started playing it on the piano. After about four weeks I could play the whole thing - it’s been with me ever since’.

John has created 16 operas for the Royal Opera House during his career but his production of La bohème has become one of the most loved in all the repertory.

John wanted to bring the true essence of bohemian Paris to Covent Garden, describing how a café he visited as a student in the city became the reference point for the lively tavern scene. He enlisted designer Julia Trevelyan Oman to help capture the raucous setting, but says he was fearful her intense attention to detail would break the budget.

‘It’s so expensive hand sewing each costume but she said “John, one day it might be filmed!” I said, “You must be crazy…” But we’ve filmed it about four or five times – and she was quite right of course”.’

‘I’ve got Anna Netrebko who I’ve never worked with before – but have admired for years – I’m thrilled she’s doing Mimì. And Joseph Calleja who I love working with - he’s a wonderful singer'.

The production is given with generous philanthropic support from Alfiya and Timur Kuanyshev, Marina Hobson OBE and The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund. Original Production (1974) supported by The Linbury Trust.

BP Big Screen audiences will have the opportunity to win a luxury picnic hamper by sharing their Summer Selfies from venues around the UK. Details of how to enter will be shared on the day of the relay.

The production is given with generous philanthropic support from Alfiya and Timur Kuanyshev, Marina Hobson OBE and The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund. Original Production (1974) supported by The Linbury Trust.

'Opera is an amplification of human emotions,' he told presenter Sean Rafferty. 'It's about love, hate, jealousy, revenge, envy, and politics. You can get an opera that encompasses many of these in the same piece. Un ballo in maschera is about politics, but it's mostly about a man who's tired of thinking about everyone else and not thinking about himself and the one he loves. Unfortunately, his love is an impossible love - he loves the wife of his best friend. It's a clash of love and love - the love for his friend and the love for the wife of his friend.'

'For once I agree with my character. I sympathize with Rodolfo [inLa bohème], but if I was Rodolfo in real life, I would have gotten a job and tried to save Mimì, not doing my mediocre poetry which is not going to get me anywhere! Rodolfo refuses to grow up; Riccardo does not refuse to grow up. He thinks, "She's the wife of my best friend. I'm going to send them to England to keep them away". He's a man of extremely high principle and self-control. He's a good man.'

Joseph also gave an insight into how he portrays emotion on stage:

'Situations that happened in the past become alive again in a moment in time [on stage]. If a scene is about death, it's the death of my father. If it's love for the wrong woman, I've loved a couple of wrong women in my life! That resurfaces and becomes so real. It happened in the General Rehearsal - I thought, "If I can't control myself, I'm going to break down here". That's why Luciano Pavarotti said "singing is 90% brain and 10% heart". Only in operas like bohème do I let all that pain come out.'

Un ballo in maschera runs 18 December 2014–17 January 2015. Tickets are sold out, but there are 67 day tickets for each performance and returns may become available.

The production is a co-production with Theater Dortmund and Scottish Opera and is given with generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.

100,000 opera and ballet fans. That number could fill the Covent Garden main stage auditorium more than 44 times over and is the current level of subscribers to the Royal Opera House YouTube channel (which increases by thousands each month). The channel is the most subscribed-to channel run by an arts organization in the world.

To celebrate this milestone, we wanted to revisit some of our favourite videos on the channel. They are of course just the tip of the iceberg – as of today we have 744 films on our channel! To explore our hundreds of behind the scenes clips, trailers and short films - not to mention being the first to see new films – subscribe to the channel.

Let us know which films you’ve most enjoyed on our YouTube channel. What would you like to see more of?

The German director's production sets the action in the time just before World War I, an era which saw widespread interest in spiritualism and mediums.

This clip sees her work with her cast on the psychological elements of their characters and offers a fascinating insight into the direction of crowd scenes, and the level of detailed acting demanded of professional singers.

'I would like to get a sense of the Chorus leaving their normal reality - to have them come out of the rigidity of their everyday life,' says Katharina

'The challenges of being a director are both intellectual and practical,' says Katharina. 'I have to find an idea that works for this piece and decide upon the message that I would like to give the audience, but on the other hand I have to deal with practical issues, for example limited space on stage - I have to decide how I'm going to place the singers so that it works.'

To see more films like this, subscribe to our YouTube channel:

Un ballo in maschera runs 18 December 2014–17 January 2015. Tickets are sold out, but there are 67 day tickets for each performance and returns may become available.

The production is a co-production with Theater Dortmund and Scottish Opera and is given with generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.

Before his return to the Covent Garden main stage in Katharina Thoma’s Royal Opera production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, Calleja spoke of how he took to singing from a very early age: ‘My mum says that I started singing before I could even talk and there are old tapes that unfortunately prove this…I had a very good ear to mimic, and mimicry is the best asset a singer can have.’

Aged 15, he found his teacher Paul Asciak, who encouraged Calleja to pursue a career in music.

‘I went with “Nessun dorma” – light stuff,’ he jokes, ‘and when he [Paul Asciak] saw this music he went, “Oh God, not another one!”. Then I started singing it and he was startled. So, I thought - immediately that I am either very bad or I am either very good. He called my father – he didn’t tell me – and he told him, “Your son has a world-class voice. It needs work of course, but he has the potential of becoming a world-class tenor”’.

Calleja went on to make his operatic debut at the age 19 in Verdi’s Macbeth and has since appeared at many of the world's leading opera houses. When asked about how he deals with fame and celebrity he responds, ‘I am not Brad Pitt, so it’s not that bad. It’s nice to be recognized, but it’s really not why I do it. My upbringing, my sense of humour, the ability to laugh at yourself; that is the most important thing for your psychological health.’

With 30 roles already under his belt, there is still one more that he would love to sing: ‘It’s clichéd but I’d love to sing Otello. I’ll sing it in my family bathroom if nobody will have me – when I’m 55 or 60 – I have to sing Otello. I think that in the long distant future I will have enough voice to do a respectable job of it. It is the benchmark of a tenor, isn’t it?’